Huge 'Backup' folder in XP Pro

JoHubb · 10 Oct 2010 at 17:36

I'm getting a message about disk space too low. I did the usual cleanups and deleted all my restore points to the latest without any improvement. Using Windows Explorer I found a huge backup folder of more than 100GB in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Backup.

I checked another PC running XP Pro and there was no 'Backup' folder at that location!

Within the backup folder there is another folder called 'backup repository' which is where most of the 100GB is.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

John

Beerbaron · 10 Oct 2010 at 17:44

Have you ever used any backup software? I have seen something similar before where a corrupt backup takes up huge amounts of space.

JoHubb · 10 Oct 2010 at 18:34

No, I haven't used backup software although I did use Acronis for disk partitioning.

SiriusB · 10 Oct 2010 at 18:40

Can you see what the files making up the 100GB are?

JoHubb · 10 Oct 2010 at 18:52

Thanks, Sirius B.

In Backup repository/Backup there are multiple files called:

AutomaticSystemBackup_XXXXXXXX_XXXXXX_Total.z01 then .z02 etc to .z70 each around 50MB.

I must go out now, sorry! I will logon later to read any replies. Thanks again.

John

SiriusB · 10 Oct 2010 at 18:59

They are basically zip archives - any compression software should be able to extract it. I can't say for certain what created them, but something called Back4Win apparantly used the .z01, .z02 etc extention.

JoHubb · 10 Oct 2010 at 19:34

Can I just delete these files? I do not want to extract them particularly! I have so little space left on this disk that I am afraid one of these days it will refuse to boot.

JoHubb · 10 Oct 2010 at 20:11

It was *!*!* Panda AV! :mad:

I twigged this from the .xml configuration file which had Spanish headings for 'fotos' etc. The Panda has been quietly backing up everything for the last 18 months unbeknownst to yours truly.

I deleted all the files in the backup repository and disabled automatic backup in Panda. With 104GB free space instead of 3GB, I am now a happy Bunny again.

Thanks for help.

John

SiriusB · 10 Oct 2010 at 20:33

Why would Panda backup files?

JoHubb · 10 Oct 2010 at 23:31

In case of loss of data due to virus attack, I guess. I am certain Panda was the culprit as the destination folder stated in my first post was given in Panda dialogues. The default setting in Panda is to backup but the program has an option to disable this. For obvious reasons I have now done this. No back up since.

John